Moral Distress in Residential Child Care

ABSTRACT

Neoliberalism has ushered in a rise in managerialism, technocracy and bureaucratisation in residential child care where economy, efficiency, and effectiveness have been prioritised over the moral imperative to care. One implication has been the commodification of children who are traded in a culture of procurement and commissioning compounded by a climate of austerity, and where moral regulation has been replaced by contractual regulation. The impact of this upon the care that children receive has raised concern. The impact upon frontline carers of intractable moral challenges which this climate presents in their role of caring each day is less well understood. The naming of an experience can provide an important starting place to understanding and challenging it. This article draws upon the phenomenon of ‘moral distress’, which is well documented in the medical field, and considers the transferability of this phenomenon from nursing to residential child care. It proposes that moral distress discourse may provide a language to residential child care workers through which their experience of the betrayal of the moral fabric of their work may be articulated.

KEYWORDS:

• Residential child care
• moral distress
• neoliberalism
• commodification of care

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Neil McMillan has been employed in the field of childcare and protection working primarily on residential child care issues since 1991. During this time he has held a range of positions including direct practice, management, research, staff learning and development, and international consultancy. He holds a B.A in Social Work from the University of Strathclyde and an MSc in Child Protection from The University of Stirling. In addition to his substantive post as Director of Community Services with the Kibble Group <www.kibble.org> he is an independent international consultant and has consulted on a number of projects with Save the Children (UK) in East & Central Africa and China, and with UNICEF in Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Myanmar, Vietnam, Ukraine and Belarus. This work has involved providing expertise in child protection policy, practice, and project evaluation in emergency, conflict and development contexts. He is a social work practice teacher responsible for assessing practice competency of undergraduate and postgraduate social work students in the west of Scotland and a vocational qualifications assessor and verifier for social care employees working towards qualifying awards for professional registration in social care in Scotland. linkedin.com/in/neil-mcmillan-80b30977